LABOR: Steel's Fat Pact

In one of the most important settlements in
this year's negotiating calendar, the United Steel Workers last week
won a contract that will raise labor costs of the nation's ten biggest
steel firms 40% over the next three years. The pact dims any hope that
the moderation that marked labor agreements last year and kept some
brake on inflation will continue. It represents a high price for
labor peace: bargaining was conducted under a year-old experimental
pact that prohibits the union from striking, gives it a guaranteed
minimum increase and the right to bargain for more, and pledges...